Bottle in clean resealable containers and chill until you are ready to serve. Makes about 3 liters. To serve, pour over ice and top with 1 part soda to 2 parts punch.

Mrs. Flannestad remarked, “If you meant to make this taste boozy, you have succeeded.” Not sure if it really tastes much like a Sazerac, but it does taste like a delicious Rye Whiskey Milk Punch. I was going to bring this along to tonight’s Savoy Cocktail Book event, but clearly that would be very, very wrong with the new paradigm being enforced by the California Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control.

And the best commentary I’ve seen so far, from Dinah and Joe over at Bibulo.us: Echoes of Prohibition. Well, Joe is an actual Lawyer…

So let me get this straight, Sangria is illegal!!?? Don’t tell the Spanish! Any pre-prepared Punch forbidden? Jerry Thomas turns over in his grave and David Wondrich gets incrementally grayer! Any house made liqueur, tincture, or bitters is now verboten!? I’m so glad that vile commercial products made with corn syrup, artificial flavoring and artificial color are just fine and I can’t make an infusion with actual fruit!!!

Basically any alcoholic mixture not mixed a la minute or involving an alcoholic ingredient not purchased through the distribution chain is against the rules?

Time to join the punch making, spirits infusing, speakeasy underground!

Method: Slice lemons, (note deadly ceramic Mandolin in foreground and cut resistant glove in background,) toss with sugar and place in a clean container.

Let stand for 2-3 days.

Add mixture to a sauce pan and bring to a simmer.

Strain through cheesecloth.

If you desire, save now candied peel, dehydrate and store in a sealed container.

Strain into clean 750ml bottle, fill with water. Refrigerate, (though with this much sugar to liquid, I really doubt much is going to happen here,) and serve with soda water or where Sirop-de-Citron is called for.

Comparing the Monin and home-made, it is really apparent the Monin syrup has been pumped up with Ascorbic Acid. It is pretty extreme in it’s lemon flavor. The home made is more natural tasting, though with a bit of a bitter after taste from the inclusion of the pith in maceration. For those very picky about bitterness, I did find some fancy pants, pastry chef type recipes which zest the lemon peel, juice the lemons, and use this to create the syrup. Personally, I don’t mind the bitter after taste, and hope it lends some zip to drinks like the Big Boy, Clayton’s, Filmograph, Marvel, Pink Baby, and Re-Vigorator.

While not an ice nerd, quite on Camper English’s scale, the top shelf gets dedicated mostly to cold, cocktail related stuff.

Useless refrigerator ice on the left. Tovolo cubes for long and shaken drinks. Hockey puck size pieces from the silicon cupcake molds for cracking. Chilled Yarai Mixing glasses for stirred drinks. Frozen Jägermeister for whenever Jeffrey Morgenthaler decides to drop by. Because you never know when to expect him. Or wait, is that the Spanish Inquisition?

METHOD: Combine spices, peel, yerba mate and wine. Heat to 160 degrees. Add mint and allow to steep for 15 minutes. Filter through chinois and add Brandy. Let stand for at least a day. Pour liquid off of sediment and through a coffee filter and bottle.

Rock and Rye Cocktail.1 Glass Rye Whisky or Canadian Club. Dissolve 1 Piece of Rock Candy in it. The Juice of 1 Lemon can be added if desired.

Here’s another one that has made no sense to me. How do you dissolve a piece of rock candy in room temperature whiskey?

I started doing a bit of research about this and found a bunch of different recipes, from those as simple as the above to those which included spices and honey infused into the whiskey.

Looking over the more complicated recipes and articles, the consensus seemed to be that Rock and Rye should be flavored with Horehound and citrus. In addition, it seemed like Rock and Rye was considered some sort of home remedy for chest ailments like coughs and sore throats.

I found a couple recipes for straight horehound candies and horehound cough syrup. At that point, it occurred to me that there was no reason I couldn’t adapt my usual punch method to this beverage, substituting the horehound syrup for the tea syrup.

Infuse Peels in Rye Whiskey for 24-48 hours. Bring water to a simmer, add spices, and remove from heat. Steep 15 minutes. Strain out solids. Add Honey and cool. Strain Rye off of peels and combine with spiced syrup. Filter into a clean sealable bottle. Add rock candy to bottle until it does not dissolve.

OK, as many of the horehound syrup and horehound candy recipes predicted, this is pretty bitter. Not exactly in an unpleasant way. More in a green, sagey, menthol-ish, and fairly pleasant way. Kind of like dandelion greens. Some friends also commented it was pretty sweet. I don’t see a way around that. The whole point of the “rock” in the bottles of rock and rye, is that the solution is so saturated that further sugar crystals won’t dissolve.

After running the finished product past a few more friends, LeNell Smother’s name came up as someone who made Rock and Rye. As a Rock and Rye evangelist, even. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to drop her a note, so I sent her the following question, “Recently reached the letter ‘R’ in the Savoy Cocktail Book and am researching Rock and Rye. When talking to some friends about it, your name came up as someone who had made an interesting version. I sort of treated it like a punch. I infused rye whiskey with lemon and orange peels. Made a horehound, lemon balm, and fennel seed syrup sweetened with honey. Combined the two and added rock candy to the bottles. It turned out at least interesting, but I have no real idea if it is even close to what rock and rye is supposed to taste like. How do you make it?”

She responded:

No “supposed” to taste like, in my opinion, as this was something folks just made and had sitting on the back of the bar. Not rocket science distillation. And probably everybody made it a bit differently. Some folks just sweetened up the rye with maybe lemon and nothing else…I make my rock and rye slightly different every time. It’s like cooking for me. I have a basic “recipe” but fuck around depending on what’s on hand. Sometimes I put more pineapple, sometimes none at all. Dried apricot? Raisins? The horehound can get too bitter for some people but I like it to balance out the sweetness plus it goes along with the cough suppressant notion.

Yes, funny! I was getting over some chest congestion just when making this recipe came up. Thus I can say with some authority that a rock and rye toddy is really good for chest congestion and a cough. Give it a try.

This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.

Hot as it was this week, I decided I would make “Cold Tossed Sichuan Noodles” from this book. No way I was creating any more heat than necessary in the house. Plus it is a quick and easy to make dish.

This is actually a great weeknight meal, if the weather is intolerably hot or not. If you have these ingredients in your pantry it takes minutes to throw together the sauce, chop a few veggies, and boil the noodles. You can also make it with any other nut butter, if you don’t like Peanut Butter. Almond, Cashew, whatever.

Quite possibly the trickiest thing in this recipe is poaching the chicken, without making it dry or tough. Even many restaurants *cough*Pomelo*cough* can’t seem to manage this. If you bring it to a boil too quickly it turns into chewing gum. Ideally, you’d seal it in a cryovac bag with rice wine, ginger, soy sauce, and garlic and sous vide it. Lacking sous vide equipment, place the bone on breast in a pan large enough it can be covered with cold water. Add a splash of soy sauce and rice wine. Crush a garlic clove and a couple ginger slices and drop them in the water. Using medium heat, bring the water up to not quite a simmer. Cover and reduce the heat as low as you can. Continue to cook until the breast reaches 145 at its thickest point and the broth is clear. The dish would also be tasty made with tofu instead of chicken.

“Classic Chinese Cuisine” is one of the first cookbooks that opened my eyes and tastes when I was in college and had my first food service jobs. One of the first time I realized that if I followed a recipe from a cookbook, I could make something much tastier than many of the restaurants I had been going to. Chinese cuisine was my first enthusiasm, thanks to this book. “Cold Tossed Sichuan Noodles” is one the first recipes I remember making from it. Just between you and me, I checked out “Classic Chinese Cuisine” from the public library. It was due for return on April 22, 1989. I’m sorry if you have been trying to check it out. The “Cold Tossed Sichuan Noodles” were just so good, I knew I needed to make far more things from the book. It’s not something I’m proud of.

To continue with the punch, maybe I should compare the beer making and punch making processes, and see if I can find parallels.

My rough understanding of the beer making process:

1) Grains are malted, which means they are allowed to sprout and begin to transform complex carbohydrates into sugars for use by the growing plant.

2) Malted Grains are dried and milled.

3) Malted Grains are slowly cooked in water to form a sweet solution (aka Wort).

4) Solids are removed from the solution, and the boil is continued. Hops, or other flavoring agents, may also be added to this solution at various points, for flavor and alleged preservative qualities.

6) The solution is racked off, maybe fined or filtered, and bottled in sealed containers, where it continues to ferment and produce alcohol, flavors and now most importantly, Carbon Dioxide. The Carbon Dioxide, with nowhere else to go, pressurized the containers and dissolves in the beer producing carbonation.

Pop the top! I’m thirsty!

Anyway, the whole Malting, Milling, and filtering off solids process is too much of a pain for most home brewers and many commercial brewers. They instead buy “Malt Extract” or “Malt Syrup” and start at step 4.

Punch Making Process:

1) A sweet flavored solution, also known as sherbet, is created by macerating and steeping flavoring agents in sugar and hot water.

2) The sherbet is combined with booze and citrus and allowed to mingle for a period.

2a) If this is a Milk Punch, the combined booze, sherbet, and citrus mixture will be fined by adding warm milk to the solution. The milk solidifies into curd, which is then removed, leaving the elements of the milk whey behind in the punch.

3) The punch solution is chilled.

4) The punch solution is diluted with water, soda, or champagne and served over ice.

As I mentioned, my e-quaintance Rob DeNunzio had previously experimented with making what he hoped would be a cocktail-like beer.

In addition, the theme of the upcoming dinner is “Italian Modernist” brewers. Italian brewers who are re-inventing what might be considered beer by many folks. Chestnut flavored beer, beers made with flowers and herbs, beers that nearly resemble negronis in their flavor profiles.

When Alex pestered me about making punch for the dinner, I think he just wanted some serious booze at a very beery party.

But when I started thinking about it, what could I do that would be in fitting with the theme? Stretch the idea of punch?

The first thing that occurred to me was beers like Chouffe‘s N’Ice, practically a beer punch already, with its candy sugar, coriander, and curacao orange peels.

First I’m going to infuse (dry hop) the booze with hops. I’m also going to replace the tea in the sweetening syrup with hops. I’ll replace a portion of the sweetener with Barley Malt. Last, I’ll skew the flavoring spices towards those often used in some Belgian beers.

Boil water to a simmer and pour over 4 teaspoons hops, dried clementine peels, cloves, and cinnamon. Dissolve sugar and barley syrup in spiced solution. Cool and allow to stand for 24 hours.

Bring milk to 140-150 degrees F. Pour Pisco off of pineapple, attempting to squeeze as much juice/booze out of the fruit as possible. Pour warm milk into flavored Pisco, cover, and allow to stand for a half an hour or so.

Disturbing curd as little as possible, pour milk and pisco through a fine sieve.

At this point it will look kind of like “louched” absinthe. Filter again through a double layer of cheesecloth.

Pour all off into clean sealable containers and allow to stand at least 24 hours.

Rack punch off of any settled milk solids and filter through coffee filter or similar.

Bottle in clean sealable containers and chill.

Serve over ice or with a splash of soda.

—

About half way through this process, it occurred to me that I was making a compounded, flavored malt and alcohol beverage. Oh wait, isn’t that what Zima was?

I mentioned this to Rob and his reply was, “And just think? If it does turn out like Zima, you’ll be filling the sad vacuum it left behind.”

Well, it doesn’t taste like Zima, that’s for sure.

The longer steep time for the spices put those out front. A slight underestimation of the sweetening power of Malted Barley tips this punch towards the sweet side. The use of lighter alcohol makes this seem like, “wait, does it actually have any alcohol?” I could have sworn I put some in…

Oh right, the legendary dangerously drinkable Pisco Punch. See you next week.

I’d like to ask you about Rum Hibiscus Milk Punch. I made it exactly according to the recipe, but it came out cloudy.

Has this ever happened to you?

Do you think the milk wasn’t curdled enough? I let it sit for 40 minutes. Does the fact that it was pasteurized make a difference?

Do you think it might have been the strainer I used? What type do you use? I used a fine mesh strainer, then even put cheescloth layers inside. Didn’t help. It’s as cloudy as a louched absinthe, but no visible sediment or clumps.

Do you think it’s still good to drink? Any other ideas to save it?

hmm….

The Milk step can be finicky.

The punch should be fine, though I would keep it in the fridge.

I put it first through a fine mesh strainer, then through cheese cloth. Then after it sits for a couple days when the remaining milk solids settle out, I rack it off.

I haven’t played around with commercial vs. less commercial milk. I always use the straus family creamery whole milk. My guess is the problem might be homogenization, not pasteurization. Straus Family don’t homogenize their milk.

When I make milk punches, the milk solids and fats always fall out of solution after a couple days, leaving it quite clear. This may not happen as readily with homogenized milk.

Heat water and add spices and tea. After it has steeped for 10 minutes, strain. Add sugar, stir to combine, and cool.

Juice other four lemons and add to pineapple, lemon, and rum mixture. Heat milk to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Add to Rum, lemon, and pineapple mixture. Allow to stand for 30 minutes and filter through fine strainer.

Filter again through coffee filters, leaving any sediment which has collected in the bottom of the containers behind. Bottle in clean sealable containers. Makes about 7 liters.

“But, Erik, why on earth would you bottle punch in used 2 liter soda bottles?”

I’ve wanted to carbonate some sort of booze since hearing that Eben Freeman was carbonating some of his drinks while at WD-50.

A few times, I’ve mentioned this idea to Daniel Hyatt while we were working together at Alembic, and we both thought it a cool idea.

In June we made punches for Savoy Night and it went over well.

Some time after the June Savoy night, I was talking to Jesse Friedman (of Beer and Nosh) and he said, “Hey, you should make a big batch of punch next time and I’ll carbonate it. Just give it to me in 2 liter soda bottles and I’ll hook it up to my kegerator.”